The connection in which these words are found, not being
important to my present purpose, I shall pass it without remark,
and proceed at once to the subject it presents. It will be my
aim,

I. TO NOTICE BRIEFLY WHAT CONSTITUTES PRIDE OF HEART.

II. TO SHOW HOW IT DECEIVES MEN.

III. TO SPECIFY SOME OF THE FORMS OF DELUSION TO WHICH IT
LEADS.

I. Pride of heart may be defined to be a disposition of mind to
exalt ourselves. It is a spirit of self-exaltation--a disposition
to get out of our own place, and get above those who of right,
even in our own estimation, ought to hold a place above
ourselves.

II. How does pride of heart deceive men?

1. It renders men in a great measure blind to their own faults.
The man of a proud heart will not see his own faults. He has no
desire to see them. He would sooner see anything else in the world
than see the bad side of his own character, and of course he takes
every precaution to avoid the honest view of himself. He has no
intention or even desire to find his own proper level in society,
but tries to deceive both himself and others. He would fain
imagine that he is vastly better than he really is, and make
everybody else believe it if he can. Hence he will overlook his
own faults either wholly, or at least as far as he can, and would
be glad to make others do the same. This is one of the workings of
a proud heart.

2. It leads men to excuse, or at least palliate their own
faults. If a proud man can no longer cover his own faults, this
will be his next resort. When he can not deny that many things in
his conduct are palpably wrong objectively considered, he will yet
maintain that under his very peculiar circumstance, they are
nearly or quite right. They will at least admit of much
palliation; so he sets himself most diligently to this labor. He
will be that last man to come down to a candid and through
examination of his own faults. Ah, he does not relish this
honest-hearted work.

3. It leads men to imagine that they have virtues which they
have not. This is often manifest in their egotistical manner of
speaking. In their common conversation they assume that they
possess virtues which nobody ever saw them exhibit, or ever
dreamed of attributing to them. Whatever in their own conduct has
the remotest appearance of virtue, they are sure to drag into
their service to prove themselves the best of men.

4. It leads men to overrate the apparent virtues which they
really possess. I say apparent virtues, for while a man is proud
of heart, he can have no real virtue. Semblances of virtue he may
have, and these his pride of heart will lead him to exaggerate as
much as possible. He will be sure to give himself more credit for
even these than he deserves.

5. It leads to an uncandid estimation of ourselves. The proud
man becomes of course partial in his views of his own
merits--committed to self, and incapable of taking sober views of
his own real character.

6. Pride of heart is always prone to make self-flattering
comparisons. The proud man is never slow to institute comparisons
between himself and others, but will be always sure to give
himself the advantage. He is always better than his neighbors.
Although he may be an impenitent sinner, he is better than most
professed Christians. "The pride of his heart hath deceived
him."

7. The proud man avoids making humiliating comparisons between
himself and others. If there are those with whom he cannot compare
himself favorably, he turns away from them and avoids if he can,
the painful self-mortification of contemplating superior
excellence; or perhaps more often he will set himself to traduce
their character, and will create or at least retail and aggravate
slander against them until he can flatter himself that they are
below him; then and then only can he feel happy to let them alone.
The sight of superior excellence is annoying, not to say
agonizing; so he goes about to level it down and make himself and
others believe that the reputed best man is not as good as
himself. It is pride of heart that begets envy, that fills society
with slander and makes it so grateful to the feelings of some men
to pick at the character of their more excellent neighbors. This
is the reason why so many of the best men are slandered, and why
so few escape its shafts.

8. Pride of heart induces an entirely dishonest application of
truth. If the proud man sits under preaching and if what he hears
applies to himself ever so fitly, he is sure not to notice at all
its application to himself, but will be very prompt and active in
applying it to his neighbor. See him stretch up his neck to look
over the heads of the congregation; he wants to see if Mr. B. is
not there--this touch in the sermon hits him so nicely. O, thinks
he, how completely that point hits such an one, and such an
one--so the poor fool (for none are such fools as the proud)
cheats himself out of all the truth that fits his own case, and
with a strange, self-deceptive politeness, serves out all the food
to others and gladly starves himself. Has not his pride of heart
deceived him?

9. Pride leads men to evade self-knowledge. How often in
conversing with men have I been struck with this! You cannot make
them see their own faults. They will dodge and shuffle--change the
subject if they can, and look in every other direction rather than
within. In courts of justice you may sometimes see a man pushed to
admit a fact that incriminates himself, and you may mark his
shuffling and evasion, and his skill in denying or concealing the
fact that he is badly crowded; but the same thing occurs often
enough out of court when the pride of a man's heart makes him hate
the light and stubbornly, though often awkwardly, shut his eyes
against it. You may hold up the light close to his face--he can't
see. Try to open his eyes--he doesn't see anything. You may draw
his character to the life--he does not recognize the
likeness--because he does not wish to! What is the reason? Pride
of heart. It often seems as if a proud man would sooner go to hell
than open his eyes to see candidly his own faults. So terribly
does pride deceive those who love to indulge it!

III. I am next to sketch some of its forms of delusion.

1. It makes men imagine that they believe the Bible when they
do not. Nothing in my own experience has ever more surprised me
than the deep and strong delusion under which I labored during my
early life on this point. I honestly supposed that I believed the
Bible to be God's word. For a long time it had been impossible for
me to evade the arguments in its favor. Indeed so thoroughly was I
convinced on this point, that the first thing I did after my
conversion was to make out a skeleton of an argument to prove on
legal grounds the truth of the Bible--which I deemed to be
unanswerable. If any body had told me then that I did not believe
the Bible, I should have felt that they slandered me most
ungenerously and shamefully. But yet mine was then only a mere
historical belief, and no act of the heart at all. My will did not
bow to the supremacy of Bible truth. Indeed I gave it no place at
all in my heart; I did not allow it to have the influence of
admitted truth upon my heart or my life. Hence my notion that I
believed the Bible to be true was a mere delusion.

That this sort of merely historical faith is a delusion is
manifest in various ways. (1.) Whoever really believes the Bible
will be strongly exercised in view of its truths. In the nature of
mind it is impossible that such truths--believed, can fail to
influence the mind powerfully. It is intrinsically essential to
the nature of mind to be moved by the truth. Hence there never was
and never can be a mind of man or angel that will be unmoved by
the belief of such truth as the Bible reveals. It is indeed true
that the will many resist the demands of this truth; but even so,
if thoroughly believed, it would arouse the sensibility and lash
it up into mountain waves of excitement. Yet who does not know
that thousands read the Bible and profess to believe it, but are
not half so much interested or affected by it as they are in
reading Tom Thumb. It is a fact. Many say they believe the Bible,
and yet are more interested in reading the silliest story-book
ever got up to amuse mere children. Do these people really believe
the Bible? Oh, "the pride of their heart hath deceived them."

This delusion is also manifest (2) in the fact that, professing
to believe the Bible, they yet take no pains to understand what it
teaches.

Suppose Br. M. comes to me saying, I have something very
important indeed to communicate--something you never heard of
before; do you believe it to be true, Br. F.? O yes, beyond all
doubt, I reply. But stop; how can I quite say this without first
knowing what it is. Let me know what it is and then I can
better--more rationally,--tell you whether I believe it.

Suppose an angel from heaven should present you a book, sealed
with seven seals, saying--This is a revelation from God to you;
and you believe that it really is so;--would you let it lie
unopened and unread? Would you let it rest a moment till you
should have understood its contents! You would search after the
means to understand it--would traverse this whole nation if need
be, and if all this sufficed not, you would explore all Europe and
even to the ends of the earth. No labor would seem to you to be
labor at all in an enterprise like this.

Yet here is the Bible, with its resistless and admitted claims
of being direct from God. How many tens of thousands believe it to
be the word of God, yet never take pains to read it--are never
upon their knees before God pleading for light to shine upon that
blessed page. O this is, as Dr. Young says, one of "guilt's
blunders, and the loudest laugh of hell," that men should delude
themselves about their belief of the Bible. Do you believe that
this Bible is a revelation from God to your deathless soul! and
then do you treat this book as if it were a silly tale? You never
need ask for stronger proof of your being grossly and fatally
deluded.

2. Men are deluded by their pride when they think they love
God, yet do not love to please Him. Who does not know that it is a
law of our being that we delight to please those whom we love, and
always shape our conduct accordingly? Love will have a kind of
omnipotent influence upon us affecting everything we do. Love has
this influence in every relation of life--between husbands and
wives--parents and children. Who does not know it? Who does not
know that if the husband love his wife or the wife love her
husband, every word and every act will show it; every word and
every act will come under the influence of a desire to please, a
desire to promote the real interest of the party loved? It can not
be otherwise. It is in the very nature of love to study to please,
and to seek the happiness of its object. Withdraw this element
from love and what is there left?

Hence it is impossible that true love to God can exist, and yet
with it no desire to please Him and do his will. The heart of love
will be continually raising the question--"Lord, what wilt Thou
have me to do?" "Lord, how shall I most fully please Thee?"

What then shall we think of those thousands of nominal
Christians who profess to love God, and yet do nothing to please
God, and everything to please themselves? Every day and hour they
are doing things and indulging states of mind which they know God
must abhor, and yet they flatter themselves that they love God!
What delusion!

3. Men think they are willing to be Christians, yet do not
consider what is implied in it. They satisfy themselves with the
loosest notions of this subject; else how could they fail to see
that they are not Christians, and really have no intention to be?
For consider, what is implied in being a Christian? Nothing less
than a total renunciation of all self-seeking--a hearty confession
of sin--in one's inmost soul renouncing it, once for all, and
forever; and a perfect consecration of ourselves to the service
and pleasure of God. Of course this implies a breaking up of all
our selfish associations and habits--a real change--so that it may
most truly be said--"If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new."

Now it is a fact that multitudes say they are very willing to
become Christians; but they never take pains to know what this
means, nor would they be willing to be such Christians as Christ
was.

4. Men, deceived by pride of heart, think they are really
Christians and truly reconciled to God, while in fact they do not
obey God. Are they reconciled to God? No, for if they were, they
would be reconciled to his government, and would obey his laws.
What does a man mean by saying that he is reconciled to God, while
he is at war with his government, and trampling every hour on his
laws? What does he mean when he says he is pleased with God's
government and laws? He answers that he means nothing more than
that he knows those laws and that government to be intrinsically
right and good. He knows this, he says, and therefore thinks
himself a Christian. So does the Devil know this, and the Devil
might just as well on this ground pretend and profess to be a
Christian as any man might, who does not obey God's law with all
his heart. Yes, unless a man obeys the divine law with all his
heart, he has no ground whatever to think himself a friend of God.
No matter as to this point how much he knows about this law--the
more he knows the greater and blacker will be his guilt, if he
does not obey. No matter how much his reason and conscience
approve the law as very good--all the worse for his Christian
hope--all the worse for the doom of his soul from a just God--if
he refuse to obey a law known and acknowledged to be holy and just
and good.

Yet how many there are who claim to be Christians, but
nevertheless live in sin, and plead for Christians living in sin,
and would be very indignant if anyone should urge them to cease
from all sin! They would perhaps think it an insult to their
orthodoxy, or that at least there is some plot to ensnare them
into a fatal heresy. What do I hear you say about your Christian
experience? "O, I don't profess to be perfect--I sin and repent
all the time." Oh, there is your mistake utterly. You don't
repent. Indeed you don't repent if you sin all the time. The first
part of what you say is probably true--but if so, the last part is
of course false--utterly false. Consider for a moment. What is
repentance? Many who say this don't know, or at least don't
consider at all what it is. If they did, they certainly would not
utter such an absurdity as to say that they sin and repent all the
time. What is repentance? It is turning heartily and wholly away
from sin. And how does this coincide with sinning all the time?
What would you think of a man who claims to be all the time sober,
and yet all the time drunk; or more precisely thus--all the time
drinking, and yet all the time abstaining most sincerely and
heartily from drinking--always drinking, and always reformed? All
the time murder and love together in his heart--obeying God and
yet disobeying, all the time, and simultaneously! Any man must be
badly deluded who can believe this.

5. Unregenerate men deceive themselves in supposing that they
are as good as Christians. They say--We give as much to support
the gospel, we are just as kind to the poor, as ready and active
in every good work, and as strong in all the reforms of the age as
the best of them; why then are we not as good of Christians as
they, and sometimes even better?

Laboring many years since in Rome, I found there a man living
in the practice of great external morality. Nothing was more
common than for impenitent sinners to make comparisons between him
and professed Christians, and to maintain that he was a better
Christian than most of them. How did they judge? They said--Mr. B.
gives as much as any of them--attends meetings as much--is as
regular in all good things, and Mr. B. is the man for us. No man
sets a better example than he; he is our model and pattern. If he
is not good enough to go to heaven, who is? and who can be? But he
makes no profession of religion; so we think we shall get along as
well without religion as with it.

The revival went on, but long before it closed, Mr. B. found
that he was far enough from being as good as any Christian in the
place. He came to see that his heart was full of all
uncleanness--that he was proud of his reputation, and utterly far
away from God in every possible respect.

But let us sift this subject more thoroughly. Take the case of
the moral man. He is externally a well-behaved man, perhaps in
this respect, even faultless. Well, what of this? Is it therefore
certain that he is intrinsically a good man? Can you infer from
his external conduct that his heart is right before God? It is
indeed true in general that we are to judge men by their fruits;
yet who does not know that we can not always judge correctly of
the heart from the mere outside of a man? We can judge of his
heart no farther than we can understand his motives and
intentions.

Now in these respects, the best moralist, being unregenerate,
is precisely opposite in character to the lowest Christian. See
them walk to the house of God in company; take together the
attitude of worshippers; alike each pays his proportion of the
expenses, and each sustains all gospel institutions by his
example. And yet if you could look into their hearts you would see
that one does all this to be seen of men--the other to be seen of
God; the one really worships at the shrine of fashion and
respectability--the other at the shrine of his Maker. Can there be
a wider contrast than this?

Again, suppose two men--the best impenitent moralist and the
lowest Christian, meet on mutual business. The points involved are
exceedingly perplexing, intricate, trying; both become very
excited and both speak very unadvisedly. Both sin against God and
against each other. Consequently, up to this point, you see no
difference in their development of character. But now they part,
and the Christian threads his solitary way towards his home. His
mind is ill at ease. He thinks no longer of the great abuse he has
received, but only of his own great sin. O, how this burns on his
conscience and his heart! How can I live, he cries, for I have
sinned against God and I have scandalized his name before the
wicked. He seeks some solitude, that if possible he may find God.
If you could follow him with velvet step you might hear him
pouring out before God his confessions and imploring forgiveness.
You might see his bitter tears--you might hear his groans of
sorrow. He pours out the anguish of his heart as if it were an
ocean of grief. Alas! he has sinned against God and brought
disgrace on the loved and honored name of Jesus!

But in all this, you hear not a word about the abuse he has
received--not one word. If however you track the other man away
from this scene of common, mutual wrong, what will you see? He
turns aside into the next shop--draws around himself a cluster of
associates--proclaims with trumpet-tongue how he has seen a
Christian falling into ill-temper, and seeks to hide his own wrong
in the clamor he gets up over his erring friend. Not a word has he
to say before either God or man, of his own wrong. Not a word has
the Christian neighbor to say of the wrong of the moralist. The
one confesses; the other has no confession to make. Can there be a
broader distinction than this?

You may recollect a case, sketched in some of the Sabbath
School books, of a Dr. Hopkins who was a very pious man, but who
had a very wicked brother-in-law --a man who had long cherished a
malign spirit towards Dr. H., for he could not bear his piety, and
therefore wanted to ensnare him into sin. A case of very difficult
business occurred between them. The brother-in-law abused Dr. H.
most shamefully in his own house, and ultimately got him angry.
They parted, each to their homes--the wicked man to glory over the
Dr.'s sin, and taunt his pious wife, saying--"There is the man you
glory in as being a good Christian. He got angry with me to day.
I've got him down and got my foot on him, and I'll hold him there.
He will not hear the last of this for many a day."

But where is the Doctor? Gone home, but not to rest. All night
he walks the room in agony--his only meat is tears--his heart is
bursting with sorrow and grief. With morning light he hastens to
that brother-in-law, and pours out his confessions before him--his
heart smitten and broken as a bruised reed. It is said that the
wicked man was first confounded, then melted. "Now, said he, I
know there is truth in religion. I never believed it before; now I
see it and know it." Oh, those confessions were like arrows dipped
in blood to the heart of that wicked brother-in-law, and through
the blessing of God they resulted in his hopeful repentance.

Another precious fact is recorded, namely, that thirty years
after this event, Dr. H. said to a friend--"I have never known the
emotion of anger since that night of agony." So thoroughly did he
renounce that sin--so intense were his convictions then--so
earnestly and effectually did he bathe his soul in the blood of
sprinkling, that the sin was slain, to live no more.

Here now were two men who quarreled and seemed alike in it; but
say--Were they really alike in character? Who does not see that
they were as unlike as heaven and hell?

When sinners have the conceit that they are really as good as
Christians, because their conduct is as fair externally, they
overlook the fact that moral character belongs to the intention.
They differ entirely from Christians, as appears from their
opposite motives, and from the fact that one is impenitent and the
other penitent. They also differ fundamentally in their dependence
for salvation. The Christian trusts in Christ alone; the sinner
not in Christ but in some form of self-righteousness. It always is
and must be essential to the state of an unbelieving sinner, that
he does not submit himself to the righteousness of Christ, but
goes about to establish some form of righteousness of his own. Go,
visit and compare the death-bed experience of the impenitent
moralist, and of the Christian. Their lives may have been
externally not greatly unlike, for both have sinned, and both have
done many things externally proper and right. But try them on
their death-beds. Visit the sinner. "You seem to be very sick."
"Yes, I am." "Do you expect to recover?" "O, I don't know. I am
very sick." "Are you willing to die?" "I can hardly say I am; yet
if God thinks it best I suppose I must submit. I believe God is
just; He will do me no injustice." "What do you think of your past
life?" "O, I have always meant to be an honest man. I have not
been as bad a man as many have supposed. I can't bear to think
that God will send me to hell, for He knows that I have done about
as well as I could."

You see, my hearer, that this man has been pretty good, pretty
good in everything, and he looks to God's justice, not to his
mercy, as his ground of hope. His own righteousness is his
ultimate ground of reliance.

But let us go into another sick-chamber. Here lies a Christian,
near his end. "How do you do, brother? You seem to be very low; do
you expect to recover?" "No, not at all." "Well, you have been a
very good man." (Mark, he turns his face away ashamed and
troubled.) "I have no goodness at all to speak of before God or
man. There is no ground for me to hope in that direction. If God
were to lay righteousness to the line, I could not stand a moment
before Him. If however I may be made the representative of
Christ's righteousness, I may be saved. All my hope is in Christ.
I never look elsewhere than to Him alone. I am a great sinner and
deserve the deepest hell." "What, sir, have you been a hypocrite?"
"O, no sir, but before I was converted, and often since, I have
greatly dishonored God, and have utterly forfeited all claim to
salvation on the ground of my own merits." "Well, brother, are you
afraid to die?" "No, not in the least; I see no reason to fear. I
believe that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost, and I have
cast my naked soul on Him alone."

Now you can not but notice the great contrast between these two
men whose dying experience we have just been contemplating. The
moralist passes into an atmosphere of clouds and darkness. Despite
of all his delusions and of all the false quiet they can give him,
his soul is full of trouble and can find no rest.

But mark the Christian--his soul is in peace. It rests not on
his own righteousness--he makes no account of his good works. My
hope, he says, is in Christ alone. But his countenance is placid
as a summer's sunset. His heart rests on the everlasting promises.
It is enough for him that God is faithful and that Jesus is
near--inexpressibly near to his soul.

Another development of self-deception occurs in the case of
professors of religion. They deceive themselves by comparing
themselves with other professors, and assuming that it is right
for themselves to do whatever they see other professors do. Now as
to this, it is in the first place an utter mistake to set up any
other standard of Christian duty than the life and example of
Jesus Christ. This, and only this, is the Christian's model. If
the spirit of religion reign in his heart, he will naturally
enquire--not whether some other professor of religion does so, but
whether Jesus Christ, in these circumstances, would do so. For his
object is not to please this deacon, or that minister, but his own
blessed Lord and Savior. Of course he can not make so great a
mistake as to pattern after some deacon or some professed
Christian of his own choice, and not after Christ.

In the second place, this practice of making some other
professor of religion your model, is delusive and untrustworthy,
because what may be admissible for him, may be utterly wrong for
you. He may have so much less light than you that God may wink at
his ignorance, but condemn you for sinning against actual
knowledge of your duty. A few days since I said to a young man who
was about leaving this place--"You will find different habits
abroad from what you have been accustomed to here. You will
doubtless find many Christian people using tea, coffee, tobacco
and perhaps wine; and if you allow yourself to argue that you may
rightly use these articles because other Christians do, you will
be grievously ensnared, and may ruin your soul. They may have so
little light on the subject that possibly it may not be wrong for
them to use these articles; but you know better than to use them,
and you can not hope that God will excuse your sin in the case on
the ground that you had not light enough to create moral
obligation. And surely it were of no avail for you to flatter
yourself that with all the light you have, you can be allowed to
do wrong because others do the same things under circumstances
which make their sin much less than yours, or even as the case may
be, which remove all guilt from their conduct."

6. Some persons deceive themselves by mistaking the excitement
and play upon their sensibilities for real religion. Some persons,
for example, are so constituted physiologically, that under the
stimulus of ardent spirits they become exceedingly pious, and can
sing and talk religiously, so that you might be tempted to think
them the greatest saints.

In my early life I boarded with a family in which the father
would sometimes come home at night half drunk, and then be so
good-natured, and read his Bible, and weep and pray, as full of
religious feeling apparently as any man could be. I looked on and
marvelled; but I could not be long in solving the mystery. But
suppose I had argued from this that it is good for a man to get
half drunk, because it makes him so beautifully pious. Suppose I
were to argue in maintaining it that I had seen its fruits with my
own eyes. Fortunately the common sense of mankind has taught them
that the spirit from above and the spirit from below are not at
all akin to each other. Yet one might just as well plead for an
alcohol religion--one which manifests itself in soft and tender
developments of the sensibility--as for any other type of mere
sentimentalism--as for any religion which lives only in an excited
sensibility. Good music may sometimes answer the same purposes of
excitement as alcohol, and may be equally deceptive. If it acts
only upon the sensibility, leaving the heart untouched, its
results can be in the end no more converting, and are no better
proof of real piety than the similar results of ardent
spirits.

Let me say further that this type of apparent piety is
exceedingly deceitful, for the reason that often it seems to carry
not the sensibility only, but even the will. The whole heart seems
to be melted--the whole man changed and everything borne along so
sweetly in the spring-tide of religious emotions. If you were to
see this man of alcohol in some of his pious moods, you would be
astonished at such developments. If you only keep a little
distance from him so as not to smell his breath, you would think
him very spiritual--as indeed, (in a peculiar sense,) he is.

Now let it be remembered, this man's religion is just as good
before God as any other type of pseudo-religious excitement which
only plays upon the sensibilities, but touches not the heart.

7. Over against this is another form of delusion in which men
have no other religious impulses except the hard driving and
goading of their conscience. No love, no faith, no sweet drawing
towards God, no cordial trust in a divine Father and a
sympathizing Savior; nothing but compunction, goading, coercion,
under the lash of conscience. They live in a strait jacket--grind
like the blind Sampson in the mill, and wear out life in agony. A
minister once said to me--"I think I must have mistaken my
calling. It seems as if I had preached all I ever had to preach,
and emptied it all out. You can not think how much hard labor it
costs me to work out my two sermons a week. I don't see as I have
any heart for the work, and you may judge that I don't have a very
pleasant life of it."

For myself I thought so indeed. If a man has no more gospel in
him than this, and finds it such enormous labor to grind out
enough for a sermon in four or five days' labor, he has probably
mistaken his calling. Above all, if he has no heart for the work,
or in it either, he might better try some other business.

Emphatically and characteristically is it true of these
self-deceived men, that religion is not their theme. This is not
the subject upon which they love to converse. They can talk freely
and abundantly on other subjects, but on this one subject of
religion their hearts are not interested, and of course their
words cannot flow out from the fullness of their hearts. If they
should get to heaven, unchanged, how could they live there unless
they might have up there their favorite topics? How could they
endure to stay where "Holiness to the Lord," is blazing in light
and fire all around?

But they expect to go to heaven! Let us see. Suppose they get
in. What do they say? Hear them talk: What's the price of wheat?
Now for great bargains. What news from the polls? How goes the
election? --But these men would think you had lost all your
Christian charity, if you should intimate that they are not on the
way to heaven.

Now let it be known forever, all real Christians have the
spirit of religion in their hearts--their souls are full of it.
Worldly men are full of the world, and no wonder that it boils
over and flows out incessantly. Christ says--"Out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaks;" and who does not know that this is
profoundly philosophical? Of course this principle will be
developed in the Christian. The Spirit of Christ has taken
possession of his soul, and now, how can it help gushing out in
rich overflowings of love, meekness, faith and humility? Mark me
now--as God is true--if this is not your character--if love does
not reign in your heart, and fill your soul, so that religion must
be your theme--nearer and dearer to your heart than all things
else--if this be not the case with you, you are a hypocrite, and
when your death-knell tolls, you are damned! mark what I say!

8. Many think themselves Christians, although conscious that
they have no peace of mind. What but a desperately wicked and
deceitful heart can cherish such a hope? For what is religion?
"Not meat and drink" surely;--"but righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost." What says the Bible? That "Wisdom's ways are
pleasantness and all her paths peace." "Come unto me all ye that
labor, and ye shall find rest for your souls." "His commandments
are not grievous."

Now look around you and mark those professed Christians whose
religion involves no peace of mind. You see them all
afloat--drifted and driven by all those impulses which agitate
other minds. Where is their religion? Do they know anything about
peace with God and joy in the Holy Ghost? Do they withdraw from
the agitations of worldliness and selfishness, and find repose as
on the bosom of their Savior? Have they such faith that they can
glory in tribulation, and does their tribulation work for them
experience, and experience hope; and is their hope one that does
not make ashamed? Is this their experience? If so, then 'tis well;
but how can men who go on year after year without peace of mind
and without trust in God, flatter themselves that they are real
Christians?

9. Many think they are accepted of God although aware that they
are indulging in sin. This delusion is more common than any other
I have mentioned, and becomes so for the reason that even the
church have lost sight of the fact that Christians can and do live
without sin. Strange to tell, multitudes of professed
Christians--with ample access to the Bible--do hold that all men
are to be expected to live in sin, notwithstanding all the gospel
can do in this world to deliver them from its power.

Under this view, it is no wonder such results should follow.
They expect, they say, to be saved through the imputed
righteousness of Christ, and they hold that this will avail for
them without any righteousness of their own. But let us reason a
moment about this. I admit most fully that men are to be justified
by Christ alone, and on the condition of personal faith in him;
but mark, not without personal holiness. Here lies the fundamental
error of those who think to get to heaven without being free from
sin;--they assume that saving faith in Christ does not involve
personal holiness. No mistake can be greater than this. The Bible
says, "faith works by love." It declares "This is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith." Of course there can be no
such faith as this while the soul is in the bondage of sin.

A certain Doctor of Divinity not long since, in opposing the
doctrine of sanctification, insisted that holiness is in no sense
and in no degree a condition of salvation, and that the condition
is nothing but faith. Faith, he holds, can exist, pure and
acceptable to God, ensuring the salvation of the believer, and all
without holiness. Monstrous absurdity! What! teach that a man can
have saving faith without being turned from sin, without forsaking
all or even any of his iniquities! Horrible! HORRIBLE! There never
was a worse error taught by men or devils! I would as soon rebuke
a man for this as for downright atheism. There is not a truth in
the moral universe more palpable and certain than that saving
faith must imply holiness. The faith that justifies must also
sanctify. If not, it were easy to show that God has made a
grievous and fatal mistake in the conditions of salvation! What!
has God contrived a system for justifying sinners IN THEIR
SINS?

10. Multitudes suppose themselves converted who have never been
even convicted. I have often fallen in with a certain man who has
been instrumental in convicting many sinners, and probably of
converting some, but who could give no account whatever of the
spirituality of God's law and of what sin is. Not less than a
dozen times in a single week has he asked me what benevolence is.
He could not retain the idea of what constituted true religion.
"What is it," he would say, "how did you define disinterested
benevolence?"

Now it is no wonder that he could not develop the true idea of
sin and impress it on the minds of others. He did not seem to have
himself the very first idea of what sin is. It is therefore
natural that under his instructions many should suppose themselves
converted who were not even convicted. They had not felt deep and
pungent conviction for sin, and therefore it was not naturally
possible that they should repent and put it away. Nothing can be
more philosophical than this--that men must know the truth, and
the truth must make them free.

11. Many fall into the error of mistaking conviction for
conversion. The great distress of conviction passes away;--the
ease and peace that follow give birth to the hope that they are
converted. There is indeed a change, and they flatter themselves
it is from sin to grace. They have been alarmed and the alarm has
subsided, but they have not received Christ at all.

Now I want you to apprehend this. Many get a hope, but do not
get Christ. They get a different state of mind, but not a
Christian state. They have no other faith than they had before.
They are not conscious of having cast off their own righteousness
and put on Christ's. They have not renounced sin and self and gone
over to the new covenant.

How is it with you? Do you know how you came by your hope? And
what it is to go over from the law as a ground of salvation, to
the gospel--to abandon the old way of self-righteousness, and
trust in the righteousness of Christ alone? Have you begun really
to drink of Christ's fullness--to know the depths of that fountain
of living waters--to have it in your very soul, a well of living
water, springing up to everlasting life, bubbling up and pouring
forth as if really an exhaustless fountain were in your very soul?
You know we read of such things in the Bible. "The water that I
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life." "And this Christ said of the Spirit which they
that believe on Him should receive."

Have you received it? If not, then there must be a mistake
about your having believed with saving faith upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. Rely upon it, if a man has this faith in Christ, the
living waters from his full soul will flow out, and there will be
a green spot around him, however barren the region round about may
be. Religion will be his theme. He can not live without
manifesting forth that Christ who lives and reigns within him.

How is it with you in this respect? Do your spirit and life
bear witness that you have this faith in Jesus Christ, and this
indwelling Spirit of Christ in your soul?

12. Many confound resolutions to do what they think right, with
real religion. Now it should be considered that mere resolutions
are purely legal, and differ fundamentally from the religion of
love. Suppose, for illustration, that the wife should say, "I must
do just right towards my husband--precisely right in every
thing;"--and she screws herself up by dint of resolutions to do
every thing that is right--and this is all. Would you suppose this
to be love--the whole of the love which befits the relation of a
wife to her husband?

I saw a lady in Boston who manifested the greatest anxiety lest
some word or thought should be wrong. Indeed she seemed to be in
agony lest she should infringe upon some principles of duty
towards God or man. I noticed her great legality. I said to her,
"Sister, I see you seem to be in great distress lest you should
not please your Savior--you seem to be in agony about it all the
time;--now tell me--Have you the same sort of distress and agony
lest you should not please your husband?" "O no," said she. "Why
not?" "Because," said she, "It is natural for me to please my
husband, and I know that I do. I love to please him and it does
not seem to cost me any effort." "Why then," said I, "should it
not be so towards Christ? Why not make his service a sweet labor
of love? Why act as if nothing but the pricks of conscience can
keep you in the path of obedience? Why not yield up your soul to
all the impulses of pure love, and let it reign, strong, sweet,
attractive, all-controlling? This would make your religious duties
a paradise."

13. Many have made up their minds to serve God, as they
suppose, and this is the form of their religion and the whole of
it. Now it is plain that if they have not formed the right
conception of what this service is, it may be the case and
probably is, that they have no religion at all.

Let us illustrate this in reference to one vital point. Suppose
a wife should make up her mind to serve her husband. By this she
understands that she shall do all the things externally which he
requires. She is going to be his real servant and evermore do all
his bidding. But unfortunately in her estimate of duties, the
element of love has entirely dropped out, and she takes no notice
of this whatever. She means to be faithful in all her domestic
duties--she will keep his house and his clothes in first rate
order and will leave no external duty neglected--but all may be as
heartless as if it were done by a steam engine. Now although such
duty, so performed, might be endurable in an employed domestic,
yet who could endure it in a wife? What husband would not
say--"You are the chosen companion of my life--the chosen object
of my love, and when I vowed my conjugal affections to you, I
flattered myself the vow was really reciprocated. I do not want
your tasks--I want your heart."

And is it strange that God also should ask for the heart? Has
He not given us his, in such forms as most impressively demand the
reciprocal devotion of ours?

But let us see what this man proposes to do who has made up his
mind to serve God. First, he is going to pray--pray to be
forgiven. Wonderful service this, if rendered as some profitable
work for the Lord--with no brokenness, or affection of heart in
it! Just as if I should go to a man fifty times a day or twice a
day and ask him to cancel my debt to him; and should enter my
charge in account for each prayer, paying off my debt--in
praying!

What else? Well, he will go to church. O, what service is this,
of mocking insult to God, if no heart is in it! In truth no matter
what the outside service may be, it is an odious abomination to
God, unless the deep outgoings of the heart are with it. You might
circumnavigate the globe with your zeal, or give your flesh to a
martyr's flame, yet all would be less in Gods' esteem, no heart
being in it--than the little tear of penitence and affection which
quivers in the dying eye of a saint who can not raise his finger
in any act of outward service for God. Aye, it is the love lying
deep in the heart, which catches the eye of the great God. And for
you to talk about serving Him without love is supreme
nonsense.

14. Many deceive themselves by supposing that selfish regrets
and sorrow are real repentance. That sorrow and regret are always
selfish, which leave sin still in existence--which can be felt and
sin still be indulged. Nothing can be plainer than this. You would
all judge thus in the case of your child who should regret and
sorrow bitterly about his crime and its consequences, if he still
kept up the practice of the crime. You could not have any
confidence in his tears, if you knew they only covered the purpose
to steal or lie as soon as your back is turned. You would know
what account to make of such tears.

Let those professors who can weep and pray about their sin, yet
never give it up, but hold on in sinning, look into this mirror
and behold their own hearts.

15. Many deceive themselves by a faith which abolishes instead
of establishing the law. Obviously such faith never can answer
under the government of a righteous God.

16. Many suppose that God justifies and accepts them while they
really condemn themselves. They seem to think that God approves of
them and of their moral state while deep in their minds there is
self-condemnation. Now the Bible says that if our heart condemn
us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, and of
course condemns us. No delusion can be greater than this. Strange
notions must he have of the purity of God and the strictness of
his law, if he supposes that his own conscience is more strict
than God is. He sees that he himself must condemn such a state as
his own; but he flatters himself that God is not so particular
about little sins as his own conscience is! O, what a
delusion!

REMARKS.

1. These delusions are all voluntary. Men need not be deceived
by their pride of heart, and would not be if they were not quite
willing to have it so.

2. God will by and by tear the mask away and reveal our real
character to all the universe. He is now employing various means
in his providence and through his grace to undeceive men; but if
all these means fail, ere long He will send His hail to sweep away
all refuges of lies forever. Then and thenceforward, "he that is
filthy shall be filthy still," forever hopeless of moral
cleansing.

3. All these delusions are based upon dishonesty of mind. Where
there is real honesty, carried out in faithful performance of
known duty, and humble trust in divine guidance, there is no
danger of being deluded.

4. We see the great folly of those who imagine that if they are
only sincere, they shall be saved. What do they mean by sincerity?
This; namely, that they really believe what they profess. But may
not men really believe a lie? Is it not said of some that because
they "do not love the truth, God shall send them strong delusion
that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who
believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness?" The
fatal mistake made by those who think that all sincere men will be
saved, is this: they overlook the fact that men may be sincerely
wicked, and, becoming sincerely wicked, they may bring themselves
to believe a lie sincerely, and God may judicially leave them to
the natural influence of a wicked heart upon the mind's
apprehension of truth.

5. Many cry "peace, peace, when there is no peace." I often
wonder how it happens that when they go alone and fall down before
God to pray, it does not strike them at once that they are shut
out, and have no communion with God at all. Why do they not see
that they have made a fatal mistake in supposing that they have
any spiritual access to God, and real communion of soul with
Him?

6. Many love to have their hurt healed slightly. They cannot
bear to have their wound thoroughly probed. Hence instead of
throwing their naked bosom open to the probe of truth, and
crying--God of mercy, let this search me, and let it go to the
bottom of all the hidden evils of my heart--they wrap themselves
all about with mufflers of self-righteousness, and then they will
sit and writhe and dodge through fear that some word of truth will
make unwelcome revelations of self to their own view. O, what will
they say when God shall come down in the cool of the day, and talk
with them face to face about this!

7. Some seem determined never to know themselves. They will
evade self-knowledge, press it upon their attention as you may.
You may try to seize them to hold the mirror before their eyes;
they will shut their eyes or turn their heads round--you can not
make them look into any moral self-revealer. I have known cases in
which a man's friends have tried to seize him, and hold him still
long enough to get the truth before his eyes, but they might as
well have tried to grasp the North wind.

8. Pride of heart is one of the most disgusting as well as most
dangerous of all forms of sin. A proud man is perpetually exposed
to deceive himself in every thing. There he stands on top of a
precipice; sheets of lightning blaze around his head, and dark
waves of damnation roll beneath his feet. What is he doing there?
Ah, me! dancing! dancing giddily as if he never had the first idea
of danger in his mind.

"I heard the wretch profanely boast,

Till at thy frown he fell;

His honors in a dream were lost,

And he awoke in hell."

O, let us put all these delusions away. Go to your closet.
Search your inmost heart; tear away every delusion--cry out, O, my
God, bring in a light! Let me see myself! O for a light--A LIGHT;
let me know my own heart to the bottom. O, search and find out
where you are, before an arrow smite you!

Hark? has it struck him? Is he dead? Yes, dead; and from my
knowledge of him, I fear he has gone down to hell! Religion never
was his theme. He did not love God's most searching truth. He
never loved to examine his own heart. I think without a doubt, he
is afar down in the depths of hell.

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